


Taking Care

by Hekate1308



Category: Endeavour (TV), Inspector Morse (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Post-Endeavour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 03:06:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13285647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hekate1308/pseuds/Hekate1308
Summary: Morse rarely mentions him. When he does, it’s usually at night in a quiet pub when he’s already several pints in, and Lewis is nursing his orange juice, wondering how this man became so jaded and lonely.





	Taking Care

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little headcanon of mine. Sometimes I hate myself.

Morse rarely mentions him. When he does, it’s usually at night in a quiet pub when he’s already several pints in, and Lewis is nursing his orange juice, wondering how this man became so jaded and lonely.

He’s learned to soak up all the information about his enigmatic boss he can find.

And so he always perks up when he hears the words “DI Thursday”. It’s not always DI, of course; sometimes he refers to him as DCI, and Lewis has come to the conclusion that he must have been promoted during Morse’s tenure as his bagman. He hasn’t asked.

Every time he does, Morse abruptly changes the subject.

So, Lewis listens.

One night, after a particularly harrowing case involving an Oxford don with a passionate for exotic pets of all things – the boa constrictor almost got to Lewis before he managed to bash her head in – Morse muses, “It’s a little bit like our old case with the tiger. DI Thursday berated me for days for going into the maze unarmed.”

And this one, Lewis just can’t let rest. A tiger? In Oxford?

He asks Doctor DeBryn the next day. The old man smiles at him. “Ah, I remember the case. We were all so young, back then.”

“Did Morse really run into a maze with a tiger?”

“Yes. You see, a mother and her baby were in danger. He likes to hide it these days, but Morse does have his soft spots.”

Lewis knows it. In fact, he’s one of the very few who’s known from the beginning. Morse always takes care to send him back home on time, if he can. To his wife and his kiddies.

“Almost got to him too, but Superintendent Bright shot it before it could gnaw at him. Not that that would have been his first injury on the job. A bit injury-prone, he was, back in the day.”

“He seems to have been rather fond of DCI Thursday” Lewis says casually.

Doctor DeBryn’s eyes soften. “We all were. They called him the old man behind his back, but fondly. He was a good man. Took Morse under his wing when he came back to Oxford. You should have seen how he fought to have a mere Constable as his bagman.”

It’s strange to think of Morse as anything other than the DCI he is now. Lewis tries to picture him, a young man just attempting to make his way up the ranks, and fails miserably. All he knows is that he must have been just as fond of operas then as he is now.

“Mind you, there was a little something or other with DCI Thursday’s daughter – he never told me, and I never asked. Things got complicated.”

The doctor looks at Lewis, but clearly doesn’t see him. Now, he’s looking into another time; when this place was filled with the now long gone coppers of bygone days.

“He didn’t – DCI Thursday – he retired eventually, right?” Lewis asks. Morse always looks so... wistful when his name falls. And a little sad.

“Oh no, he didn’t die on the job. He did retire, and he lived until he was well over eighty. I think he and Morse grew apart though, but you know him; kind of hard to stay close when you don’t have the job and see him every day. Died a few years before you came here, actually. I’ll never forget Morse’s face at his funeral. Mrs. Thursday passed on soon after.”

When Lewis doesn’t answer, he asks, “What prompted this investigation into the past, may I ask?”

Lewis smiles weakly. “DCI Morse... he mentions him sometimes.”

Doctor DeBryn hums. “When he’s half drunk, no doubt. You know, DCI Thursday used to try and get him to quit, now and then. And of course Mrs. Thursday mothered him whenever she got the chance. She was a lovely lady.”

It sounds like DCI Thursday was every bit as important to Morse as Morse is to Lewis; after all, if you end up with a bad superior, you never learn your trade, not when it comes to police work.

It’s really strange he mentions him so rarely, Lewis decides. He has no doubt that he’ll supply anyone who will listen with anecdotes about Morse for years to come.

And so it becomes something of a hobby of his, to catch the snippets Morse mentions now and then, to try and fill in the blanks.

The victim on their next case has, or rather had, a collection of pipes. Lewis stumbles across Morse in the room where he kept them, looking intently at one of them, slowly twirling it around in his hands.

“Sir?”

“DI Thursday had one just like this. Wouldn’t even stop smoking when he got a bullet in his lung. Of course, those were different times back then.”

Lewis remains quiet, careful not to make a sound.

“He actually coughed it up, would you believe that? Doctors told him he was dying, and he just coughed up the bullet and was fine.”

It’s just unbelievable enough to be true, and nothing surprises Lewis anymore when it comes to Morse.

“Of course after that he had no reason to give up his pipe. Smoked right until the day he died, Mrs. Thursday told me.” Morse was silent for a few moments, then added, “She never could get me to call her Win, even though she tried.”

He looks at Lewis then, blinking, and the Sergeant can see how the young DC turns back into the old, world-wary DCI. He’s surprised to see him. “Lewis? What is it?”

“Doctor DeBryn says they can move the corpse now, sir.”

He turns away with an expression of disgust. “The sooner the better.”

But even as Lewis leaves to tell them, Morse is still holding the pipe.

A few days later, a specialist tells Lewis, “Really, he only collected those because he liked them, I’d say. None of them are really worth a lot – most like, the next of kin will just throw them away.”

That comes true a few days later, when Lewis has a few follow-up questions for the niece of the victim and finds her putting the pipes into trash bags. As she reaches for the one that Morse took, Lewis asks, “Would you mind terribly if I took that one? I’m quite – fond of pipes myself.”

She throws him a puzzled look, but gives it to him.

Lewis puts it on Morse’s desk when he’s out and goes to get coffee. By the time he returns, Morse is sitting in his office, and the pipe is nowhere to be seen.

Lewis is unsure how he feels about it until Morse pays for their drinks that night.

Sometimes later, Doctor DeBryn casually lets fall where DCI Thursday and his wife are buried – or rather, he mentions to Morse that the victim will be buried in the same cemetery.

Lewis has absolutely no reason to go there, of course.

He does.

The grave of DCI and Mrs. Thursday are well-kept. Lewis remembers Doctor DeBryn talking about their daughter. She must have made sure of it.

He stays there in the quiet cemetery for a while, staring at the words on the gravestone, wondering if Morse ever comes here.

Thinks of a pipe-smoking, hard but fair DCI taking a young man under his wing; and seeing him become the Morse Lewis has come to know so well.

Finally, he says, “Don’t worry. I’m looking after him now.”


End file.
